Wolf Schneider is a famous German journalist, often called, as here, the 'pope of the language' (Sprachpapst). In fact, the interview begins with a set of his nicknames, about him being exacting with language. The best, I think, is "Monster der Sprachkultur". Oxford-Duden defines Sprachkultur as "level of compliance with linguistic norms". That is, Schneider has basically been called the Monster of Peevology. His response to this was more or less: "Monster isn't a nice word, but whatever."
By the way, the title is actually shortened from "Germanistik zu studieren, halte ich für besonders töricht", "I consider it especially stupid to major in German Studies."And he rails against literary studies, along with blogs, twitter and about everything else.
If you read German, the piece might give you a chuckle ... .
* Nope, I don't know what's going on with her accent either.
1 comment:
You're kidding me: In English, we say 'peevology' and the Germans say 'Sprachkultur'? We've got an outrageously negative term and theirs sounds really positive.
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